She had a speech planned, but once on the stand Wednesday, Valerie Bray said she would speak from the heart.
“I would never intentionally run anybody over, leave them on the road, and not render help. Because that’s not me, sir,” she told Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Tom Greenholtz.
Then she turned to the parents of Cameron Bean, the 28-year-old runner she hit on Moccasin Bend Road on Sept. 19, 2015, and who died two days later. A packed courtroom stared back, with Bray’s supporters on one side and Bean’s supporters on the other.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she said, offering to sit down with the family, to find whatever healing there was left to find – if there was any. “If there’s anything I can do to help, I would. And God bless you.”
Then she grabbed the paper bearing her speech and hobbled off the witness stand, using a cane to return to her seat at the defense table.